Inktober 2023

I made it to the end of inktober this year and I am just delighted about that.  Last year, I did inktober a little differently, trying to draw the entire contents of the month's prompts onto a single page, which ended up being interesting, but on the whole, less satisfying.

This year, I dedicated a page to each drawing in an a6 notebook. I used a Midori MD I started a couple months ago as a doodle book, so there was no being precious with the pages.

Below are a few select drawings that I was pleased with.

I already wrote about the joy of monthly challenges, so I won’t say much more, other than that when the month ends, it can be a little sad: partly the ending of the challenge, but also knowing that it’s going to be harder to push yourself to do the same thing without that framework. But who knows. There’s nothing stopping me from picking a word and trying to turn it into a drawing of some sort.

The Midori MD is a great little notebook; I bought at least four more of 'em while I was in Japan in October. They definitely have some show-through (or ghosting), but the paper is nice for fountain pens (what I like to draw with) and there are an abundance of pages. The A6 size also fits in my sling bag, so I usually have it and a pen with me when I’m out and bored.